Greece: The Muse of Rebellion Sings in Heraklion

On the Greek island of Crete, the people of the capital city of Heraklion were an audience for the song of Muse of Rebellion. The course of events took a hard leftward turn in the latter part of this week. Students occupied all the local universities. The students' unions occupied the prefecture and hosted a free concert in the central square. Pupils boycotted school. More than 2,000 marched through the city center.

On the Greek island of Crete, the people of the capital city of Heraklion were an audience for the song of Muse of Rebellion.

The course of events took a hard leftward turn in the latter part of this week. Students occupied all the local universities. The students' unions occupied the prefecture and hosted a free concert in the central square. Pupils boycotted school. More than 2,000 marched through the city center.

In plain view of the cops, pupils donned scarfs and hoods, broke the pavement, and attacked the cops with stones. Stone and fire is a weapon of the weak harks the Muse of Rebellion. The cops retreated. A police van and a government vehicle were overturned in front of the prefecture building. Many migrant workers, hooligans, Roma, and poor folk from Heraklion's neighborhoods joined the rebellion. Most banks in the city center were burnt. Cops attacked with rubber bullets and one demonstrator was injured.

Earlier in the week (7 December 2008), organizations of the left had called for a demonstration at the central square, with more than 600 demonstrators, mainly pupils and anarchists. During the march, more than ten banks were smashed, while police followed. Towards the conclusion of the march, a large bloc decided to clash with the cops, constructing barricades on the central square, and attacked a police station with stones and molotovs.

Cops used excessive tear gas, but the people spread into smaller groups and attacked the police in the streets; clashes lasted for hours. Neither arrests nor injuries were reported. Ultras of the local football team (OFI), and "ordinary" people participated. Many demonstrators marched to the more popular neighborhoods of Kaminia and Therissos, where dozens of banks were smashed, while residents cheered and informed the demonstrators of movements of the police. Overnight, undercover cops were observed throughout the city.

A day earlier (6 December 2008), a few hundreds had gathered in the central square, and during the march attacked a police station, the tourist police, and the Courthouse. Memories of the murder of a young motorist, Iraklis Maragkakis, outside Heraklion five years ago are fresh: when he didn't stop at a police roadblock, cops shot him in the head, leading to attacks against the police headquarters, and prosecutions of local anarchists the next day.

Eleven have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors. In some cases passersby demand that the cops release those arrested. Fascists and cops in plain clothes wander in the streets.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'retz reported that troops were deployed to restore 'law and order' on the streets of Chios and Rhodes.

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Last week a group of protesters started guarding action after some trees were taken down illegally in the name of urban gentrification projects. In the second day of the protest, very early in the morning, the police attacked the protesters heavily with gas bombs, presssured water and plastic bullets and wounded many protesteds. A spark began against this event of state terrorism and spread accross the country turning into a massive action and organized the big revolt. The public organized against increasing attacks, state terrorism and police violence and have been turning the streets into the area of resistance. This public revolt has been streaming for four days and is constantly spreading. [Italiano]

Clashes broke out between protesters and MAT riot police at around 2pm on Wednesday as tens of thousands of striking workers marched to parliament in the country's biggest anti-austerity rally in months.

On Tuesday, 8 February, by 4pm, the coordinated attack of junta’s henchmen culminated against the people of Keratea (Attica-Greece). During the last two months, since 11 December, residents and people in solidarity resist strongly against the landfill construction project in Lavreotiki area. People oppose by any means to the plan of their lives’ deterioration and the natural wealth’s plunder that are attempted by the construction companies’ hyenas and their political crutches of democratic dictatorship.

The democratization of information has been an important aspect of the Greek rebellion. Students in the city of Patras recently entered the T.V. station "Super B" and broadcast their views and demands on the Greek political situation. In Xanthi, approximately 400 demonstrators assembled in the city center, briefly occupying the municipal radio station to transmit information; police attacked the people gathered outside and street battles erupted. In Athens, "Flash FM" radio was occupied to transmit information, but the signal was terminated. Athens IndyMedia reports that the Athenian radio stations 98 FM and 1431 AM have been liberated.

Therefore there are not dilemmas. If the broader class, base, social movement in Greece can gradually and through perseverance and faith in the struggle to oppose resolutely and practically the confide of the lives of workers, unemployed, pensioners, immigrants in the hands of State, governments and authority generally wherever it comes from, and put into immediate operation and extend grass-roots structures like those cited above, this will be a great victory, a huge (re)starting forward, especially now, these critical moments for everybody - now that the masks have been fallen.

At the time of the writing of this article the ruling class is continuing to search for the "right" person who as "transitional" prime minister can guarantee implementation of the unpopular measures to be taken against the people of Greece, squeezing them once again and ensuring continuation of the most savage exploitation in recent history. [Ελληνικά] [Français]

Kostas Avramidis of Irish Anarchist-platform WSM, piece, on current conditions in Greece gives a flavour of what is going on in one of the small number of countries in Europe where there is ongoing mass public action against the austerity agenda. He draws our attention to community campaigns against unwanted capitalist projects, where the traditional political system has been bypassed. Kostas sees this as a symptom of a rising political consciousness among ordinary Greeks, but he poses his own concerns if this will be enough to transform the plight of the Greek working class in a radical way.

It is the people that have already passed the threshold between indignation and resistance that constitute this square which is trying to find other squares in order to provide them with the ground for locality in terms of resistance, claiming and creation, it is this square that brought together tens of thousands of people, it is this square that fought a tenacious battle in the center of Athens on June 28th and 29th. It is this square that by passing the threshold etches a new path and keeps the door of future and hope open for others, it is the social pioneer of the Greek society, it is the rival to the one-way course imposed by capitalism, it is the shadows that will always return through the teargas clouds…

All austerity measures forced on Greek people since 2010 constitute a small hors d'oeuvre in relation to the upcoming tsunami of social poverty and squalor that will be served to them as the main course by the capital and the Greek government, the IMF and EU directorate. The percentage of “official” unemployment has surpassed 16%, while the real one is estimated to be more than 20%. [Ελληνικά] [Castellano]

We, the oppressed ones, are every day living days when the states make our lives poorer through their injustice, when the powers steal our lives through corruption. Today, what the war between the AKP constituents has showed us, is not only the theft of this government but also the reality that all governments would be thieves. Because beyond the governments, the states are stealing our lives.

In this situation we live we need all to realise that we must take the matters into our hands to move in self-management of the production and society. Who indeed is still confident of all of these who run and govern this country for years? Who gives a legitimacy to their rulers and mechanisms? Why has everything to work for the advance and the power of those few?